Fire Science Show

Fires in informal settlements and humanitarian settings rarely make headlines, but they define daily life for millions. We sit down with Kindling founder Danielle Antonelis to trace a four-year arc from the non-profits early days and ideas to grounded results: a global shelter database, experimental campaign with 20 full-scale burns, and a learning model that puts residents first. The core shift is profound—safety isn’t a box to tick; it’s a practice repeated and refined across homes, lanes, and entire neighborhoods.

We dig into how Kindling translated complex fire science into choices that matter under pressure: where...

Catastrophes don’t happen because of one bad decision; they happen when many small assumptions fail at the same time. I take this opportunity to talk about my thoughts related to the Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong. I attempt to examine how a routine ignition escalated into hundreds of compartment fires across multiple buildings—and what that says about the limits of our current fire engineering. Keep in mind these are the opinions of myself! 

We start by challenging a comforting belief: that prescriptive rules and performance-based designs can handle “the big one.” They can’t if the ev...

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you Merry Christmas, a great time with your families, a bit of rest and time to reflect, and an awesome 2026 to come!

If you are desperate for fire science on Christmas Eve, check out the OFR report on open car park fires, which we were able to contribute to: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-open-sided-car-parks

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our...

Today we cover another branch of safety of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), that is explosion prevention in mitigation. I always thought you can either end with a fire or with an explosion, and boy I was wrong... but we will go back to this later. Now I bring on Dr. Lorenz Boeck (REMBE) and Nick Bartlett (Atar Fire) to unpack how gas released during thermal runaway turns a container into a deflagration hazard, and what it takes to design systems that actually manage the pressure, flame, and fallout. This is a tour through real incident learnings, rigorous lab...

A facility with 105 synchronized fans pushing hurricane-class wind across a full-size house while a live fire... This is not science fiction - this is a real research capacity that helps us re-shape our knowledge on the full scale building ignition, fire spread, and failure. That’s the stage at IBHS, where we dig into how wind-driven fire behave differently to small-scale and how tiny choices around a building can decide its fate. Together with my guest - dr Faraz Hedayati, we go from embers generation and fire spread studies, to urban conflagration research.

We start with embers, th...

What can you learn after processing observations across 900 severe fires? A lot. Actually, I will send you to the paper straight away:

Evaluating 900 Potentially Harming Fires in Germany: Is the Prescriptive Building Code Effective? German Fire Departments Assessed Fire Safety Measures in Buildings Through On-Site Inspections 

And now let's dissect this. We sit down with Björn Maiworm of the Munich Fire Department to unpack a decade of structured observations from more than 2,000 significant incidents (900 in the paper but the database already grew!) across Germany—and the results may challenge the assumptions of Fire Safety Engi...

What do you expect from running a fire test? I would hope that it improves my state of knowledge. But do they do this? We often pursue them blindly, but it seems there is a way to do this in an informed way. 

In this episode we explore a rigorous, practical way to select and design experiments by asking a sharper question: which test delivers the most decision-changing information for the least cost, time, and impact. With Dr. Andrea Franchini of Ghent University, we unpack a Bayesian framework that simulates possible outcomes before you touch a sample, u...

A viral clip of an EV igniting was what started my worries about safety in car parks I have been designing. Are we ready for fast growing fires? Since 2019 I've learned and studied a lot, I've relaxed on some aspects of it and was able to identify they areas where a lot more engineering considerations should be placed. In this episode I would like to take you inside the engineering choices that shape outcomes: ceiling height, smoke control, structural details, and how fast systems wake up when seconds matter. Instead of arguing EV versus ICE, we look at what...

It is a massive effort to rewrite a national fire safety code around measurable risk, explicit targets, and cost-effectiveness. But sometimes, there are great reasons to do so. In this episode, together with Gianluca De Sanctis and Sofia Kourgiantaki we take you inside Switzerland’s sweeping reform, where a new federal law sets a maximum individual risk for life safety, ties property protection to a clear marginal cost rule, and harmonises practice across cantons. Together, we trace how the framework defines acceptance criteria, builds a shared “model code” of probabilistic inputs, and keeps prescriptive pathways for standard projects—only now grou...

Demand for the energy storage is as high as ever, and is about to triple-quadruple. The development of technology is at unprecedented phase, and even within a single project you may face different cell, battery or container generations. This pace reshapes how we think about battery energy storage safety, from enclosure design to emergency response. We sat down with Noah Ryder from the Fire and Risk Alliance to unpack how BESS has evolved from walk-in containers to dense, modular “refrigerator” units—and how the move to liquid cooling, tighter layouts, and higher amp-hour cells impacts both opportunity and risk.
Duration: 00:52:10

This week, in the Fire Science Show, we host a roundtable discussion on complexities in fire safety science and engineering.

Most safety failures don’t come from a single mistake—they emerge when people, technology, and institutions misalign. In an ever-changing field in which complexities just go up, we open up a debate on how to cope with that so that the entire field goes in the right direction. For this podcast roundtable debate, I've invited Steve McGuirk, who represents Fire Sector Confederation, and Professor Brian Meacham from Crux, a lifelong contributor to understanding systems in fire safe...

In this episode of the Fire Science Show we invite dr. Antonela Čolić from the OFR Consultants, to break down the performance of adhesives used in CLT in fire, what differences between the glues are observable at the microscale  and how they show up in real structure fires.

We compare common polyurethane adhesives: one that softens near 200–220 C and one that resists softening, crosslinks, and ultimately chars. Through thermogravimetric and calorimetric testing, we map pivotal transitions like glass transition and softening. Then we scale up. With small shear-lap coupons and meter-long cantilevers under controlled heat flux, we see h...

In this episode we try to demonstrate another step in integrating fire engineering into WUI risk management, and vice versa. These two areas together form some sort of fire engineering method, which I strongly believe will be an important part of our profession in the future. Today I got to sit down with Dr. Pascale Vacca from UPC to unpack a practical, end-to-end framework for wildland–urban interface risk that engineers can use today, which she has shared in her keynote at the ESFSS Conference in Ljubljana earlier this year. 

From mapping hazard, exposure, and vulnerability across sca...

Fire doesn’t play by Earth’s rules once you leave gravity behind. In this deep dive with Professor Michael Gollner, we unpack what the recent experiments at the ISS called SoFIE-MIST taught us about solid fuel flammability in microgravity—how tiny ventilation, oxygen levels, and pressure shifts determine whether a flame spreads, stalls, or vanishes. The details are surprising: blue “bubble” flames, two distinct extinction points, and sustained burning at oxygen levels that would fail to ignite on Earth.

We walk through the entire setup: PMMA rods chosen for clean, uniform burning; a compact wind tunnel inside the...

In this episode we dive into the ap between standardized tests and experiments, trying to figure out (a) is there a difference and (b) if there is, could not understanding the difference quietly erode safety. With guest David Morrisset (Queensland University), we unpack furnace ratings that read like time but aren’t, cladding classifications that were never meant for façades, and the infamous bird-strike test that shows how any standard bakes in choices and consequences. The throughline: context rules everything.

We talk plainly about what tests actually deliver—repeatability, reproducibility, and comparability under fixed boundary conditions—and why...

In this episode, we give focus to the SFPE Foundation – a catalyst transforming how fire engineering research is funded, conducted, and shared globally. In this conversation with Leslie Marshall, Interim Executive Director of the SFPE Foundation, we discover how a relatively small organization has distributed over $1.2 million in grants, scholarships, and research funding since 2021. While the Foundation has existed since 1979, its recent expansion with dedicated staff has accelerated its impact across the fire engineering community worldwide.

Leslie reveals the Foundation's unique position in the fire safety ecosystem – while SFPE maintains the gold standard for current practice, the Foun...

What happens when the flames die down? It's a question rarely addressed in fire engineering, yet the decay and cooling phases of fires can be more dangerous than peak fire conditions. In this deep-dive conversation with Dr. Andrea Lucherini from Frisbee at ZAG in Slovenia, we uncover why these overlooked phases matter profoundly for structural safety.

Most engineers focus on protecting structures during the fully developed fire phase, but as Dr. Lucherini reveals, catastrophic failures can actually occur during cooling. We discuss a tragic case where seven firefighters died when a concrete structure collapsed, not during the...

In my personal view, an alarming truth about building fire safety lies in the gap between what's designed and what actually works in a building. After conducting 1000+ hot smoke tests in 200+ buildings, my experience is that most (maybe even 90%) of buildings had deficiencies in their smoke control systems, with 30% experiencing issues significant enough to potentially endanger occupants during a real fire. But it's not just about the problems. Good news - we have solutions.

Hot smoke testing stands as a powerful, yet underappreciated methodology that reveals what standard commissioning simply cannot. By creating controlled fires using methylated...

What happens when we stick a thermocouple into a fire? The answer is surprisingly complex and has profound implications for fire safety engineering. In this deep-dive episode, Dr. David Morrisset from Queensland University joins Wojciech to unravel the science of fire measurements that underpins every experiment, test report, and dataset in our field.

The conversation reveals a critical truth often overlooked by practitioners: measurements don't capture reality directly - they capture the interaction between our instruments and fire phenomena. When a thermocouple reports a temperature, it's actually measuring its own thermal equilibrium, not necessarily the gas temperature...

The devastating 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California serves as a haunting reminder of how rapidly wildfires can overwhelm communities. We have not known anything like it - the flames raced through Paradise at four miles per hour, 30,000 residents had mere minutes to evacuate, and many couldn't escape in time. What happens when the fire goes worse than worst case scenario, but still people need to escape? How do we protect lives when escape routes are blocked by fire or gridlocked traffic?

Dr. Eric D. Link, NIST's researcher in the groundbreaking ESCAPE Project, takes us deep into these...

The world looks entirely different through a thermal camera lens, especially in a fire scenario. These devices reveal harsh temperature gradients between hot and cold surfaces, adding another dimension to how fire safety professionals understand and navigate dangerous environments.

Thermal cameras have transformed firefighting operations with astonishing effectiveness. Studies show that in smoke-filled buildings, thermal cameras have significantly improved the changes to identify victims. This technology dramatically reduces search times and increases survival chances, making it an essential tool for modern fire services around the world.

Martin Veit, who recently completed research for the Fire...

The AI revolution has arrived, but fire safety engineers face a critical dilemma: how to leverage powerful AI tools while protecting confidential project data. 

Professor Ruggiero Rino Lovreglio from Massey University and Dr. Amir Rafe from Utah State University join us to explore the world of local Large Language Models (LLMs) - AI systems you can run privately on your own computer without sending sensitive information to the cloud. While cloud-based AI like ChatGPT raises serious privacy concerns (as Sam Altman recently admitted, user prompts could be surrendered to courts if requested), local models offer a secure a...

When experts from different disciplines attempt to collaborate on complex problems, such as evacuation modelling, we often discover that we're not speaking the same language. Even seemingly simple terms like "density," "velocity," and "distance" carry dramatically different meanings across physics, psychology, engineering, and computer science.

In this episode, we present the "Glossary for Research on Human Crowd Dynamics," a remarkable community effort that brought together over 60 researchers to create a shared vocabulary for those studying human movement in crowds. In this episode, I speak with two key contributors to this project: Professor Enrico Ronchi from Lund University...

In episode 17 of the Fire Fundamentals, we delve into the fire detection technology. Fire detection forms the critical foundation of all active fire protection measures, serving as the prerequisite for any fire safety engineering solution to work effectively. Following key points are discussed:

In the 16th part of the Fire Fundamentals series, we invite Randy McDermott from NIST to join us for a deep dive into turbulence and its critical role in fire dynamics modelling. We explore the physics behind turbulent combustion and how it fundamentally shapes fire behaviour, plume dynamics, and simulation accuracy.

In this episode we cover:

In this podcast episode, I invited Chris Jelenewicz, the CEO of SFPE, to bring me up to date on the society. The SFPE Handbook on Fire Protection Engineering is undergoing a major revision with the sixth edition expected by summer's end, expanding to five volumes with significant new content on emerging topics like wildland fires and lithium-ion batteries. In this episode, we cover how the handbook is written, edited and when it will be released to the public.

Some highlights from the episode include:
• The new handbook will feature 11 sections, 104 chapters, and contributions from ov...

Water might seem like the simplest part of firefighting – just point and spray, right? Well, as you can imagine, the reality is a bit more complex. In this conversation with veteran firefighter and CFBT instructor Szymon Kokot, we pull back the curtain on firefighting's most critical resource to reveal the intricate science and logistics behind effective fire suppression.

Did you know a standard fire truck carries just 10 minutes' worth of water for a typical residential fire? Or that a water-filled fire hose can weigh up to 45 kilograms per 20-meter section? These physical realities shape every aspect of fi...

As a consequence of the Grenfell Tower disaster, some strong legislation was proposed, such as a combustible ban on building walls. This, however, affected more than just the building facades, as it excluded materials such as laminated glass used as balcony balustrades. 

Today, the path forward demands evidence that could inform decisions on the future of laminated glass in this use. In this conversation with Mike Spearpoint and Konstantinos Chotzoglou from OFR Consultants, we dive deep into their groundbreaking experimental research on balcony fire safety that emerged in response to the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Through e...

Today I'm taking you for a sightseeing trip to see what fire safety looks like beyond our usual office, residential buildings and car parks. Fire engineering takes on an entirely different dimension when applied to massive infrastructure projects where conventional building codes provide minimal guidance and engineers must forge their own path.

Dr. Mukesh Tomar from Jacobs takes us deep into the world of "non-real estate fire engineering" – the complex realm of cable tunnels stretching dozens of kilometres, nuclear facilities requiring marathon-like design processes, and mega-airports that function as entire cities. These projects demand fundamentally different approaches fr...

Dr Randy McDermott takes us behind the scenes of fire science's most critical software tool in this conversation about the Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) developed at NIST. As one of the developers, Randy offers valuable insights into how this essential modelling tool is maintained, improved, and adapted to meet the evolving challenges of the fire safety community.

The conversation begins with a look at the development process itself, based on a greater picture roadmap and also addressing practical issues reported by users. This balance between vision and responsiveness has helped FDS maintain its position as the gold...

Four years ago, what began as a mission to preserve valuable fire safety engineering conversations has grown into a fairly large platform connecting professionals across 170+ countries. The journey to 200 episodes and nearly 200,000 downloads has been both challenging and deeply rewarding – in this episode, I share a bit about my journey, the state of things and the near future of the podcast. 

*** Important notice: at the end of the show notes is a survey, and I would be thrilled if you participated in it. Back to the news post ***

Behind every weekly episode lies 10-12 hours of...

I've finally done it. We've repeated Jin's experiment! I thought I knew-it-all about that experiment, but boy... knowing and doing it are two different things. I can say, I've finally cleared my mind on some thoughts after this, which I am finally happy to share with all of you!

First things first, massive thanks to my partner in crime Wai-Kit Wilson Cheung, from the group of prof. Xinyan Huang, who was the man on the ground doing the experiments with me. Together we went further into this model, than ever before. 

The revelations are far-reaching. W...

The gap between fire safety engineering and firefighting operations creates a profound challenge that affects building safety worldwide. Even experienced fire safety engineers - myself included - face uncertainty when designing for firefighters without being firefighters themselves. Yet many building codes explicitly require engineers to account for firefighting operations in their designs.

This examination dives into the timeline analysis essential for effective firefighter support, from notification (when firefighters learn about the fire) to arrival at the building to actual intervention. Each phase contains complexities often overlooked: fire alarm systems might be delayed by human verification, architectural complexity...

What happens when a lifetime of studying industrial fire hazards meets the creative mind of a novelist? In this conversation with Professor Joaquim Casal, we explore the unique intersection of fire safety engineering and science fiction through his novel "The Last Fire."

Professor Casal, a retired academic from Universitat Politécnica Catalunya and founder of their fire research group, has crafted something unique – a  novel where the protagonists are fire researchers and the plot revolves around fire phenomena, fire research and fire testing. 

Beyond the novel on its own, our discussion also takes us deep into...

Episode 200! And for this special episode,  I've travelled to London to interview Prof. Guillermo Rein and Dr Matt Bonner on a piece of research carried out at Imperial College London, with the experiments performed in our laboratory at the ITB.

In this episode, we discuss the concept of flammability of the building facades and how this flammability is assessed with different testing methods available in the world. You could argue that every country has their own method, and in some cases, they use those methods even with varying criteria of acceptance. Even though the methods are as d...

We know a whole lot more about mass timber in fire than we did a few years ago (even when I’ve just started the podcast 199 episodes back …). But is this knowledge widely used in engineering practice? Is it used in the same way by different stakeholders? Definitely not.

This is why to move timber into something we would consider “new normal”, we need more than research. We need a consensus on how to apply the outcomes of our research in practice. And this is this podcast episode.

Built by Nature, with a group of investor...

The devastating impact of waste and recycling industry fires costs approximately $2.5 billion annually in the US and Canada alone, with lithium-ion batteries causing roughly 50% of these incidents. In this episode with Ryan Fogelman from Fire Rover, we discuss:

• Understanding the scale of waste facility fires and why traditional fire protection methods often fail in these environments
• How lithium-ion batteries have created a "hockey stick" rise in fire incidents since 2015
• The "vape effect" - how 1.2 billion single-use vapes with no proper disposal options are contributing to the fire crisis
• Why remote monitoring and response systems can dete...

When wildfire threatens neighbourhoods with closely-spaced homes, what determines whether flames leap from one structure to the next? The FSRI research team - Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn - joins us to unveil their experimental series that methodically dissects the pathways through which fire spreads between buildings.

The team walks us through their massive outdoor experimental setup, where they created controlled compartment fires and measured their impact on adjacent walls and windows at various separation distances. They discovered that even non-combustible exterior cladding like fiber cement board won't necessarily protect a home when...

In this podcast episode, we host Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn, all from the FSRI, to cover their recent experimental research on fire spread through external walls. This is part 1 of the interview - the background, rationale and context. In part 2, we cover the experiments themselves, findings and actionable guidance from the experiments.

This research is conducted within the context of structure-to-structure fire spread, potentially in urban conflagration scenarios. The subject is most relevant, as when wildfires meet urban areas, they transform into something far more destructive – "wildfire-initiated urban conflagrations." These events devastate en...

The UK's Building Safety Act requires high-risk buildings to maintain comprehensive fire safety cases - living documents that identify hazards, mitigate risks, and establish clear accountability for building safety. This is the subject of my discussion with Chris Mayfield and Martyn Ramsden from OFR.

• Safety cases differ from fire strategies by being owned by the building's accountable person rather than consultants
• The Principal Accountable Person must take responsibility for preventing fire spread and structural failure
• Safety cases must document hazards, protective measures, and management systems
• The approach draws from lessons in high-hazard industries following disaster...

Professor Xinyan Huang from Hong Kong Polytechnic University shares his expertise on battery fires and the various experimental methods researchers use to trigger thermal runaway events under controlled conditions.

• Terminology matters - "thermal runaway" more accurately describes battery failure than "ignition" as the critical reactions occur inside the cell
• Nail penetration testing is widely used but contains surprising complexities, including nail material, penetration depth, velocity and battery orientation
• Mechanical abuse tests (crushing, dropping, squeezing) simulate real-world accidents but often lack repeatability
• Thermal abuse via heating typically targets 200°C surface temperature using methods including flame exposure...

Welcome to another Fire Fundamentals. This time the episode is focused on various extinguishing technologies. Invited guest - Bogdan Racięga, Director at Baltic Fire Laboratory and expert in fire protection systems breaks down the fundamental differences between suppression and extinction technologies and how they work in real-world applications.

Jet-fan systems effectively control smoke in car parks by creating directed airflows that transport smoke from one point to another, similar to how longitudinal ventilation works in tunnels. These systems offer cost-effectiveness and simplicity by eliminating ductwork while providing powerful smoke management capabilities when properly designed and understood.

• Jet Fans create momentum transfer through air entrainment rather than directly moving smoke
• Two distinct operational modes exist: smoke clearance (reducing thermal stress) and smoke control (maintaining clear firefighter access)
• Systems require careful balancing of extraction capacity with Jet Fan thrust force
• Optimal design typically requires CFD mode...

This episode explores the invaluable contributions of community participation in fire safety technical committees. Joining committees is not just about sharing expertise; it’s a journey that transforms careers and fosters growth. Our guests, Birgitte Messerschmidt and Kees Both, reveal how their experiences in various committees, including the NFPA, ISO, ASTM and CEN, have shaped their professional paths. 

As we dive deeper into the intricacies of committee politics, our guests candidly share the challenges and rewards of engaging in this important work. They emphasize how participating in committees enhances one's career and contributes to the greater good by...

With the emergence of electric vehicles, fire safety and dynamics have entered a new domain, raising crucial questions about existing protocols, design fires and data gaps. Today, our Wojciech Wegrzyński welcomes Zahir, Associate Prof. at University Putra Malaysia, to discuss the findings from their latest papers, compare methodologies, and highlight the differences between traditional combustion engines and electric vehicles. 

The conversation covers various topics, from the nuances of fire dynamics to the importance of context in risk assessment. Zahir shares his extensive experience studying vehicle fires, including the evolution of electric vehicle dynamics that users should ne...

This episode emphasises the value of focusing on simple things in fire safety engineering, something we somehow miss when we go too deep into the technical details of our projects. I've looked at eight different aspects of fire safety - inspired by the CPR requirements, and I've added resiliency, redundancy and suppression to them. By promoting straightforward guidelines like evaluating material combustibility, ensuring effective egress routes, and engaging with rescue services, architects and engineers can significantly enhance building safety practices. 

In this episode, we talk about:
• Simple methods yield effective fire safety solutions 
• Importance of adheri...

In this episode of Fire Fundamentals, together with Dr Sara McAllister, we dwell on how stuff burns... And it is far from an easy question. While the general theme of the episodes is porous fuels, we discuss them from different angles, highlighting the similarities and differences between foamed and permeable materials.

In this episode, we cover:

Can a tiny amount of bio-protective coating completely change the fire behaviour of mass timber logs? If you asked me that some time ago, I would say it would probably be neutral.

Can a 0.5 x 0.5 m free-standing log of timber smoulder through without any external exposure to fire? If you asked me that some time ago, I would say no, and base that on observations of dozens of logs like this.

Yet, in Australia they’ve burned. And the hypothesis was that it has something to do with the preservative treatment.

My guest to...

If we truly want to account for the population at a disadvantage in evacuation, there is only this much we can do with the current approach... Pre-evacuation time distributions, walking speeds, and so on only tell us a part of the story - the story of your average person within an average population, with an average walking speed and average response. While these models are undoubtedly useful in engineering, there is perhaps a better way.

My friend and guest Enrico Ronchi is trying to find this way through his new ERC Consolidator grant, "Egressibility: a paradigm shift...

In the aftermath of the LA Pacific Palisades Fire, I've decided that instead of inviting one expert to discuss the event, I will give a voice back to those who already participated in the Fire Science Show and explained this fire (months and years before it happened).

In this episode, we recap Wildland-Urban Interface fires, with a focus on the "urban" part. We cover conditions in which such fires may happen and factors that contribute. We discuss the role of community preparedness and pathways in how those fires "attack" individual households. We talk a lot about embers...

This episode delves into the financial aspects of fire safety in building design, highlighting the balance between cost and effectiveness. My guests - prof. Thomas Gernay and Chenzi Ma from Johns Hopkins University share insights from their NIST-sponsored research project on cost-benefit analysis and loss estimation for structural fire safety. In the discussion, we explore the differences between prescriptive and performance-based approaches, discussing insights from a comprehensive analysis of over 130 structures and how to better allocate resources for passive fire protection measures.

In this episode, we cover:
• Understanding fire safety costs in construction 
• Insights on presc...

History repeats itself. A new thing is invented. We learn about it, understand it, and apply measures to capture its behaviour and regulate it. And then another new thing is invented. The measures we used start failing us, and the cycle repeats all over again.

It is not a story of fire safety; it is a story of humanity. Similar cycles can be observed in all aspects of technology. One could call them Innovation Blind Spots after Prof. Rein; in science, you could call them paradigm shifts after Prof. Kuhn. Regardless, these cycles are the frame we...

Fire is a highly contextualized problem; therefore, there is no such thing as an unbiased or "objective" fire experiment. It is a thing that many researchers would understand but is very rarely pointed out. Where it is not a problem for fire science (more like a 'feature'), it may become one when the results of scientific experiments are directly applied to real-world engineering cases.

In this episode, I cover biases in research, from general ones to highly specific fire safety engineering biases. The list is long, we cover:

I just drove 500 km to have a conversation with Professor Vincent Brannigan from the University of Maryland, a very unique expert who combines law with fire engineering. In this discussion, we go into the complexities of building codes and fire safety, comparing traditional design methods (prescriptive) with performance-based designs (and all the stuff in between them). Through anecdotes and historical fire incidents, we highlight the impact of these systems on societal safety, economic development, and international trade. Vincent's unique background in both law and technology provides a rich perspective on how fire safety regulations have evolved to meet contemporary...

In this episode of fire science fundamentals, we cover the pressurisation systems. These are smoke control solutions used to prevent smoke from accessing protected spaces, by creating an overpressure in those spaces. Although the idea is very simple, its execution is far from that. Pressurization systems need to work in two distinct states – when all doors to the protected space are closed (over pressurization state), and when some openings are open (flow-path state). 

In this episode, we cover:

·         What are pressurization systems and why do we use them in buildings;

·         Static and dynamic pressure;

Discover the hidden backbone of fire safety with assurance industry expert Abhishek Chhabra as we unravel the essential frameworks that keep our buildings safe and sound. We explore the vital role of standards, accreditations, and testing mechanisms in fostering trust and compliance within the construction industry. It is not easy to talk about, but I assure you (pun intended) that Abhishek can talk about it in an engaging and fun way.

Gain a deeper understanding of the current landscape of fire safety engineering, where an urgent demand for robust credential assurance matches the scarcity of professionals. Delve...

Happy 200th birthday, Scottish Fire and Rescue Services!!! I'm a bit late to the party. Still, I've done my best to celebrate your anniversary in the best way I can - by giving homage to the amazing fire safety engineering and firefighting that came out of Edinburgh and your founder, James Braidwood.

In this episode, we tap into the secrets of early fire safety measures and discover the fascinating history of firefighting with our guest, Michał Stachowicz, a dedicated Scottish firefighter. We promise you'll gain a newfound appreciation for the roots of fire engineering, which surprisingly predate t...

Wildfire modelling is quite complicated when you wish to integrate different fuel packages with different properties in 'real' environmental conditions while managing the transition to/from smouldering. We have a model for each, but how do we make them work in unison without relying too much on their users' skills? This is a subject for a good research grant... a very big one. And this is something 'we' just got!

A fire scientist from King's College London, Dr Francesco Restuccia, has just secured an ERC grant for his innovative project on wildfire modelling. The project name is <...

You are not supposed to use the word 'panic' in the context of human behaviour in fires, yet this episode contains 196 instances of it. Why? because we try to get to the bottom of the thing! Can panic be both a myth and a reality?

Join us as we challenge the age-old narratives of panic in emergencies with our distinguished guest, Professor Daniel Nilsson, from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. We unravel the misconceptions surrounding human behaviour during fires, spotlighting the harmful effects of outdated myths perpetuated by media and literature. By debunking these...

The Grenfell Tower tragedy has triggered a Public Inquiry (which just published their final report), and concurrently - a review of the UK Building Regulations and Fire Safety. The latter task was given to Dame Judith Hackitt, a former Head of the Health and Safety Executive and a chemical engineer.

In this interview Dame Judith Hackitt lends her voice to a pressing dialogue on fire safety reform following the Grenfell Tower tragedy. She uncovers the systemic flaws that allowed such a disaster to occur and stresses the urgent need for a cultural shift in safety practices, beyond...

AI is changing the world. But can artificial intelligence truly revolutionize fire safety engineering? In this episode I took out my crystal ball, and tried to find answers in what aspects of fire engineering we could truly see a revolutionary impact of AI, and where it is more a disturbing gadget with no real application... 

Overall, working in the space for many years, and having talked with many luminaries of the use of AI, I would say my expectations are toned down a lot. I am still excited, but I've also learnt that really good AI applications r...

CFD is the most talked-over subject in the Fire Science Show. There are two reasons for that: one, it is interesting and relevant for so many of the Audience, and two, it's something I do for a living. 

There is also another reason: there are a lot of ideas and concepts of how CFD could be used "better", yet I struggle to see them make an impact in the world of practical engineering. I would love to see the CFD being used in fire as it is in aerospace or Formula1 industries, yet, there are some struggles a...

One could argue full-scale experiments on fire phenomena are the most enriching for our knowledge as the fire community. The costs associated with them and logistical nightmares of organizing them make them an uncommon sight. However, in an instance where we reach the boundaries of our knowledge, they are necessary to progress further. 

That was the case of the research programme carried out by the OFR, in the umbrella of Structural Timber Association Special Interest Group (SIG) - CLT compartment fire behaviour, including the industrial partners: Binderholtz, KLH and Stora Enso, Henkel and Fermacell. Two large experimental p...

I approach modelling water mist with caution. Not that I don't understand it, but because I lack clarity in the goals and objectives, as well I'm usually aware I may not deliver the expectations of my clients in terms of the physical phenomena I am capturing... And I'm not the only one like this. In this podcast episode I explore the world of water mist with Dr Max Lakkonen from IFAB, who has just been chosen as the new President of the International Water Mist Association (IWMA),

Max dives into the history and evolution of water mist...

What happens to controlled doors when a fire is detected in the building? They unlock. Elevators? They go down. People are guided somewhere, and the fire strategy is executed. As it should.

But what if the real threat is not the fire itself? What if the real threat is using the fire as a decoy or, worse, as a tool? What if the threat has intelligence, motives and the ability to adapt to the actions of our systems?

Now, this is a frightening scenario. A scenario in which the security objectives could be much more...

EVs are becoming more of a 'normal' part of fire safety engineering rather than an 'exotic problem'. I've invited two colleagues from Thornton Tomasetti - Ali Ashrafi and Pawel Woelke, to discuss what this engineering looks like. 

In the episode, we discuss insights into how fire risks differ between electric and internal combustion engine vehicles and why the focus is shifting from cars to more pressing hazards like electric scooters and energy storage systems. We explore the different approaches in the US and Europe, discussing the importance of performance-based solutions and timely detection to manage fire risks e...

Fires in the waste industry are not discussed much unless one sees a giant smoke plume in the media, followed by advice to close your windows. In these (rare?) cases, we remind ourselves of the massive industry related to storing, sorting and recycling garbage, and the obvious environmental hazards such fires pose.

From 2017 to 2020, Poland experienced a challenging time with fires at landfills, primarily caused by arson or negligence. A bit later, when I was working on my chapter for the Handbook of Fire and the Environment, I saw Ragni Fjellgaard Mikalsen working on hers about waste...

In this episode we talk with Jonathan Hodges of the Jensen Hughes on his experience with using advanced modelling in the realm of fire safety engineering. Jonathan sheds light on how the modelling is used at various Jensen Hughes offices around the world, highlighting interesting differences they see across their practice. 

The core of the talk revolves around using CFD for modeling the consequences of fires, versus using it to assess the fire growth. While the first one is a commonly practiced in offices across the world, the growth part is kind of a challenge. We go i...

In the everchanging world every now and then we get a new driver, that dictates most of our choices. In the current built environment and building industry, carbon dioxide feels like such a driver. We don't like it, we want to get rid of it... One way is to sequester or store large amounts of CO2 in our buildings. Ways to do that - more obvious is mass timber, but thats not the only thing. Let's talk bio-based insulation.

In this episode I've invited Patrick Sudhoff, now from DBI but the research was carried at University of...

Is the "best practice" always the best approach to solving an engineering problem? Can we consider "best" and "appropriate" practices synonymous, and if not - how big is the gap between them? Join us as we welcome Professor Arnold Dix back to challenge conventional wisdom in engineering. Focusing on the nuanced distinction between "best practice" and "appropriate practice," we explore how context-sensitive solutions outperform complex and costly standards. Using real-world examples like tunnel ventilation systems, we illustrate the power of practicality, cost-effectiveness, and suitability in engineering, particularly in fire safety.

We also uncover the hidden economic motives...

The last time I had Xinyan on the show was in 2021, and we were all excited about the possibilities that AI could bring to Fire Safety Engineering and Smart Firefighting. Three years have passed, and while we are still excited, we can now talk about experiences. What worked and what did not? Where were the challenges, and what was simple? You can only learn that from brainstorming, you learn this by doing. Xinyan's team implemented dozens of algorithms for various projects, and it is this experience we try to explore today.
 
The episode is bitter-sweet. Even though c...

Soot is perhaps the most complex product of combustion, and at the same time one of the most profound for our everyday fire safety engineering. The topic of soot is not getting much love in the world of fire science, so I’ve chosen to give you a broad introduction to this subject. In this episode of fire fundamentals we will go through:

·         Soot creation from chemical perspective;

·         Soot creation from practical perspective;

·         Soot effects on radiation, toxicity and obscuration;

·         Extinction coefficient and specific extinction coefficient;

·         Soot yield and surrogate value of soot yield fo...

In this episode of Experiments that Changed Fire Science we cover T. Jin’s experiments on the visibility in smoke – two experiments carried out in 1970 and 1971 in Japan that truly changed the way how we model fires and how we design fire safety in our buildings.

This episodes presents my recollection of Jin’s experiments, based on the published work – the seminal paper at the IAFSS in 1997 (https://publications.iafss.org/publications/fss/5/3/view/fss_5-3.pdf) and the original material published in Japanese in 1970 and 1971:

Is evacuation of a community during a wildfire largely different from evacuation of a building? How much of the knowledge from the building fires is directly useful in planning and managing such an event, and what stuff is completely different? These are the lead questions for my today's interview with prof. Enrico Ronchi from Lund University and dr Max Kinateder from  National Research Council Canada. 

Both guests currently research the evacuation layer of the WUI problem – starting with the response of the endangered people, through choice of the mode of the transport, to solving the transportation models of s...

In the episode 10 of fire fundamentals together with David Morrisset, a nearly graduated PhD student from the University of Edinburgh, we explore the intricate dynamics of flame spread and its crucial role in fire safety engineering. David helps us differentiate between the two primary modes of flame spread, concurrent (imagine upward spread) and opposed (imagine downward spread), and explains how understanding these mechanisms can significantly enhance building safety and fire risk mitigation.

In this episode, we take a closer look at various materials like PMMA and timber and their unique fire behaviors. We also examine the complexities...

With two Directors at NFPA - Michele Steinberg and Birgitte Messerschmidt, I'm trying to find an answer to a burning question - "what really is the WUI problem?" The WUI is not just a line on a map with an X distance from the forest... In this episode we try to define what it is, and who is in danger. Instead of our usual conversations looking into characteristics of burning forests, or seeking the impact of detailing in construction, in this episode we try to take a birds eye view and identify the problem across the scales and frameworks...

In today's Fire Science Show, we talk about how boundary conditions can make or break your fire simulation models. We'll explore boundary conditions' fundamental role in defining how simulations interact with their environments and how mastering these can lead to more accurate and reliable fire simulation models. I hope we break down some complex topics into manageable insights. Also, I hope we've turned something really boring into an interesting and fun episode. We discuss:

1. Boundaries interacting with flow:

pressure inlets/outlets [open];velocity boundary conditions [vents];mass flow inlets;fans and HVAC models.2. Boundaries containing the...

A critical velocity episode... who would have thought? Even though I'm not an enthusiast of this approach, I have to admire the new science and researchers striving to improve it.

This week I welcome Conrad Stacey and Michael Beyer from Stacey Agnew to talk about their recent developments. We'll take you through the historical development of this concept since its inception in 1958, examining key variables like tunnel height and heat release rate along the way. We go into the Memorial Tunnel experimental project, and we discuss the context and the economic implications of recent updates to the...

What if you could predict the last possible time to evacuate your community before a wildfire wreaks havoc? What if you had that knowledge years before the wildfires happened and built up your preparedness based on this knowledge? What if you knew how this boundary changes with wind, dry weather and direction?  I think you get a knowledge-based decision model, and that is exactly what my guests today have been looking for.

Join us as we explore this cutting-edge approach with Imperial Hazelab Dr. Harry Mitchell and Nick Kalogeropoulos, who reveal the trigger boundary methodology developed within t...

Misconceptions in fire science are a strange thing. You present countless proof, publish research papers, and carry conversations, and yet… they live their own lives—spreading with no control and cluttering communication. One space is full of them—the fire safety of photovoltaic installations on flat roofs. In the Fire Science Show, we already had two very powerful episodes on PV—one with Jens Kristensen and one more recently with Reidar Stølen.

 In today's episode, we highlight a new guideline document published by the team at FRISSBE led by Prof. Grunde Jomaas. I invited Grunde to walk me th...

Happy birthday, Fire Science Show! 

On the 3rd Anniversary of the podcast launch, I'm thrilled to deliver an episode on one of the most fascinating aspects of fire science - the compartment fire. Instead of going through the usual curriculum of the phases of fire, transitioning into flashover and flashover itself, I instead focus on the methodology's practical aspects. Which parts of the building have the largest impact on the fire? What is the impact of the opening? How much fuel matters? What happens in a large compartment, and how does it differ from a small one? T...

I'm very sorry, but I could not finalize the episode to air this week in time, and in consequence, I have chosen to have a short technical break in the podcast. We will return next week with a (hopefully) really exciting episode on compartment fires! It will be kind of a birthday party, so I'm looking forward to that and trying to ensure the episode is worthy of the occasion.

In the meantime, as you perhaps have a spare hour of your time and no podcast to listen to... I would love to invite you to my...

A few weeks ago in Copenhagen, stepping onto the stage to open the SFPE Fire Safety Conference and Expo on Performance-Based Design, I took a bit of a gamble. I was invited to give an opening keynote, but instead of talking about my fire science and engineering, I've chosen to confront an often-overlooked cornerstone of our profession: communication. If you follow the podcast, it is not something new to you. I brought up this case multiple times - Fire safety is not just about the technical mastery of fire dynamics and code compliance – we, as engineers, need to be as...

In this episode, we dive into standardization efforts for fire safety. An entire universe of testing laboratories, committees, auditors, and certifiers work together to provide product end-user fire safety classification. So, in the end, the user does not have to worry about what the product will do, as its relevant characteristics are well known from the certificate and, to some extent, from the standards.

But that's a perfect world. In the real world, it is perhaps not that simple. Crafting a good standard takes time and effort. And numerous features make standard good. This is the discussion...

The fire is detected in the building. Please evacuate. Do not use the elevator.

I’ve heard this emergency message perhaps a thousand times. It is deeply engraved in my mind to the extent that the moment I hear the first beep of the fire alarm, I know this message will come up. I heard the chime sound, and I knew I should evacuate and not use the elevator.

But in all seriousness, why? Why shouldn’t I use the elevator, and what would happen if I did (in case the building would not prevent me f...

Wind turbine fires - are they an issue, or are they not? In this episode, I am joined by Prof. Guillermo Rein of the Imperial College London, who raised this issue 10 years ago at the IAFSS conference, and I believe we still do not have a clear answer.

In this episode, we discuss the fire safety of wind turbines using the layers of protection framework - from suppression, detection, and prevention to firefighting. We have discussed the challenges with evacuation and the subsequent fires triggered by "firebrands" flying out of the burning wind turbine.

I...

CROSS UK is Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures in UK. CROSS is a confidential reporting system which allows professionals working in the built environment to report on fire and structural safety issues. These are then published anonymously to share lessons learned, create positive change, and improve safety. Find out more about the safety information we provide below.

This initiative in the space of fire safety is lead by Neil Gibbins and Peter Wilkinson, who are my guests today. We go through the ideas behind the institution and the reasons why we need it. We discuss the confidentiality...

In this episode of the Fire Science Show we go in depth on the Building Integrated Photo-Voltaic systems (BIPV). It is a topic relevant to many fire engineers, and one on which it is very difficult to find a lot of information about. For this purpose I’ve invited Reidar Stølen from RISE and a PhD candidate at Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU.

Reidar has hands-on experience with fire testing BIPV façade, as he has performed such experiments with the Swedish test method for a commercial project. The results of the first experiments can be...

In this episode, we explore wildfire's impact on industrial fire safety with Professor Eulàlia Planas from Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya. Eulalia defines the term  Wildland Industrial Interface (WII), a realm where the forces of nature clash with safety and process engineering.

In the episode, we highlight that it is not just the exposure to the fire itself but also to the secondary effects - ember storms, firebrand accumulation, strong winds or power shutdowns that may cause significant damage. Also, even if the wildfires do not cause fires directly, they may damage auxiliary systems, creating unacceptable vul...

Depression and anxiety are on the rise in both academia and engineering consultancies. Everyone is constantly stressed and pushed to their limits. The system is built this way... And imagine that on top of the inadequate mental health related to the stressful environment, you also struggle with a mental illness. A health condition you did not choose, you may or may not be aware of, and may or may not be treating... Now, add trying to build a family and advance the most challenging part of the academic ladder. All of these are elements of the story of today's...

In this episode, we discuss the stark realities of fire safety engineering in South Africa (and beyond) as we sit down with Professor Richard Walls from Stellenbosch University. Our journey through the recent history of devastating fires, from truck blasts to the fire that took down the SA Parliament building, lays bare the critical gaps in resources, awareness and education that have catastrophic consequences. 

Professor Walls's expertise guides us through the complexities of local building codes and the vital role of education in fostering fire safety competency in the country. We dissect the shortcomings of current regulations a...

Imagine if we had a tool that we could use to design a design fire. Instead of simply assuming fire growth characteristics by slapping the alpha-t2 function, use a tool that could tell us which items in a compartment burn and what the characteristics of that fire are. I would say this dream is shared among many fire safety engineers - I think we can all agree that we could use such a tool.

Today's guest, Dr Greg Baker, has shared this dream and built a tool like this within his PhD at the University of Canterbury...

In today's fire fundamentals episode, I have chosen a difficult job: explaining how CFD modelling works without the ability to put a single equation out there! It's much tougher than I thought! I hope I've done a decent job, though.

I am trying to fill out this niche of talking about CFD at an approachable level. I've noticed there is a ton of 'introductory' level resources about modeling. Still, they usually very quickly go into mathematical formulations instead of explaining in plain language what is the purpose of specific models or modelling approaches.

In this...

If the word 'uncertainty' sounds extremely boring to you, this episode will prove you wrong. I have invited David Morrisset from the University of Edinburgh to discuss his research on the subject. Whereas in fact David is establishing standard deviations, means and other statistical means of quantifying uncertainty in core fire measurements, the really impactful and important part of his research is on explaining WHY those uncertainties are there. Through physical explanation of processes happening in fire we may grasp a really good understanding why two HRR-time curves of the same object burned in the same lab, in the...

This week, I am meeting up with Imperial Hazelab's Harry Mitchell, who is finalizing his PhD thesis on mass timber fires and, quite uniquely - including the smouldering phenomena in those fires.

As a part of Code Red experiments run by Arup, Imperial College London and Cerib (which you can learn more about from episode 111 with Panos Kotsovinos)  Harry has performed observations of formation, growth and decay of smouldering "hot spots" for up to 2 days after the fire. Based on that, conclusions were formed on the occurrence and persistence of the smouldering in large, open-plan mass timber c...

Tests in the world of reaction to fire are supposed to be representations of real fire scenarios, allowing us to grasp the characteristics of building products against them. While for the worst scenario (flashover fire) or the smallest ignition source (small flame), the definition is pretty straightforward. However, creating the intermediate method that the entire Europe would agree on was a bumpy ride. Our latest episode is a treasure trove of knowledge detailing the birth and maturation of the Single Burning Item (SBI,  EN 13823 ) test standard.  With the CEN SBI group  Convenor - Rudolf van Mierlo, we discuss the his...

I've finished my first large research grant! I guess that makes me a 'real' scientist now. Came here today to share some most interesting aspects of this project with you. Not going to bore you all about the wind and fire interaction physics (hey, there is an entire episode 50 devoted to that!), but rather talk about challenges and stuff that perhaps will matter if you would like to engineer a case similar to one we have studied.

So in this podcast episode, we will go into:

It is interesting to see changes in our profession that happen directly in front of our lives. Climate change and in consequence the changes in the wildfire patterns are one such obvious shift. In Poland, we do not ever have a ‘wildfire’ season, and I was kind of surprised when I discovered this is a thing in the South or in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, we do not have it *yet*. Some years ago devastating wildfire season happened in Sweden. There has been an emergency in northern parts of Russia as well. The summers are more dry – I thou...

This episode of the Fire Science Show welcomes once again Adam Barowy from the Fire Safety Research Institute to shed light on the pressing issue of fire hazards in electric mobility devices.

In this episode, we give a follow-up to ep. 085 with Adam, which was published one year ago. One year in the world of e-mobility is a lot of time, so we have a lot of catching up to do!

We tackle the complexities of standardizing explosion protection for large-scale energy storage and the implications of toxic smoke on human health. We delve into...

In this episode of Fire Fundamentals, we dive into the life-saving choreography of fire detection and building automation systems that must work together in case of a fire. We discuss the roles and challenges related to:

We also discuss the sources of potential delays in device operation, and how some of those are consciously built into the system as a means for false alarm mitigation.

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire...